The present invention relates to toy vehicles and, more particularly, to a toy vehicle designed to move on a horizontal surface, a magnetic slope surface, a magnetic vertical wall, a magnetic stairway, or the surface of the water, thus being varied in its playing ways and allowing children to naturally acquire a variety of scientific attainments in addition to developing both their initiative spirits and their power of observation while playing such toy vehicles, the toy vehicle being also designed to be movable in a circular way within a predetermined section of a simple railway and to be selectively movable between two or more sections of the railway as desired.
As well known to those skilled in the art, toy vehicles are a kind of most generalized toys. A variety of toy vehicles, including non-powered primitive toy vehicles and powered luxury toy vehicles, have been proposed and marketed. In the prior art, the powered toy vehicles are typically designed to move using mechanical power created by, for example, springs, or electric power created by, for example, motors. Some motorized deluxe toy vehicles, designed to have operational functions almost completely similar to those of genuine vehicles, have been proposed and marketed.
In addition, the powered toy vehicles may be designed to move along a circular railway. In such a case, the conventional railways for powered toy vehicles typically consist of a set of rail units, which may be assembled together into a variety of railway patterns.
However, such a conventional powered toy vehicle, designed to move along a circular railway or on a horizontal flat surface, is problematic in that the toy vehicle only moves along the railway or on the flat surface using the rotating force of its wheels, and so it is limited in playing ways and make children easily tired of playing it. Such toy vehicles also undesirably fail to allow children to acquire scientific attainments or to develop their initiative spirits while playing the toy vehicles.
The powered and wheeled toy vehicles, designed to repeatedly move on limited railways, merely perform a simple and limited movement on the railways, thus undesirably reducing the scientific thinking ability of children and disturbing a development in both the infinite imagination and initiative spirits of the children, and deteriorating children""s power of observation. Another problem of the conventional powered toy vehicles used on limited railways resides in that it is necessary to array the railways on peculiar large areas, thereby consuming the areas and forcing users to somewhat carefully treat the railways arrayed on the peculiar areas.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made keeping in mind the above problems occurring in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a toy vehicle, which has a permanent magnet ring fixedly fitted over each of the wheels, thus being automatically movable on a magnetic slope surface and a metal vertical wall in addition to a horizontal surface, and which is easily played by children without being limited by the area and is varied in its playing ways, thereby getting the children interested in playing the toy vehicles, and which allows children to naturally acquire a variety of scientific attainments, such as information of characteristics of magnets, in addition to developing children""s initiative spirits while playing the toy vehicles.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a toy vehicle, which has a V-shaped groove through the center on its bottom between the front and rear wheels, thus being movable on a metal stairway while climbing over the top comer of each step of the stairway.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a toy vehicle, which is provided with a floater on its body and a plurality of vanes or blades on each wheel, thus being movable on the surface of the water while floating on the water.
A still another object of the present invention is to provide a toy vehicle, which is also designed to easily move on rails between two or more sections as desired, thus more effectively getting children interested in playing such toy vehicles.
In order to accomplish the above objects, an embodiment of the present invention provides a toy vehicle having a body with front and rear wheels, comprising a permanent magnet ring fitted over the rim of each of the wheels so as to allow the toy vehicle to be movable on the surface of a magnetic structure.
In the above toy vehicle, a V-shaped groove is formed through the center on the bottom of the body between the front and rear wheels. The above toy vehicle may further comprise a floater provided on the bottom of the body, and a plurality of vanes regularly provided on the sidewall of each of the front and rear wheels, thus forming a water wheel, whereby the toy vehicle is movable on the surface of the water in a desired direction by a rotating force of the wheels, with the body floating on the water.
Another embodiment of this invention provides a toy vehicle with a plurality of main traveling wheels, comprising a body having a drive assembly operated in conjunction with the main traveling wheels through at least one drive gear, a plurality of auxiliary traveling wheels installed at the top surface of the body and operated in conjunction with the drive assembly through a driven gear, with a permanent magnet formed on the circumferential surface of each of the auxiliary traveling wheels to have a predetermined constant thickness, and a power transmission means connecting the drive and driven gears to each other so as to allow the drive and driven gears to be operated in conjunction with each other.
In a modification of the above embodiment, the power transmission means comprises a mid gear rotatably mounted to the body. This mid gear connects the drive and driven gears to each other so as to allow the main and auxiliary traveling wheels to be rotatable in the same direction.
In another modification of the above embodiment, the power transmission means comprises a bracket mounted to the body so as to be changeable in its position by a lever, a mid gear mounted to the bracket, and an idle gear mounted to the bracket while always engaging with the mid gear.